SUREFIRE SOUND TOUR

Surefire is one of the Bay's secret dance music weapons, growing from a scrappy-yet-canny bass label to an international artist rep agency, whose eye-popping roster reads like a serious underground bass fanatic's who's who. But let's ditch the market-speak and go under, as Surefire's ace tour lands at SOM, with jooky UK headliner (and local fave) Addison Groove of "Footcrab" notoriety doing a live 808 show, and Doc Daneeka, who makes some unabashedly gorgeous house and dank-groove music.

THE GATHERING

Last year, essential Bay Area rave the Gathering turned 20. (What other party can claim that its participants stomped out a potentially disastrous grass fire in the hills, while dancing?) That party was the kind of reunion blowout that not only took "rave to the grave" silly-seriously, but cuaght the ears of younger generations as well. Now it's tuning an extra-legal 21, and will still go hard, with beloved DJ Dan, Hipp-E, Dutch, Andy Caldwell, and the Sunset and Forward crews, and tons of visual artists, surprises, and bonkers fun.

SUNSHINE JONES

As one half of Dubtribe Sound System, Sunshine Jones was responsible for a bonafide deep house masterpiece, "Do it Now" from 2001. His solo output has been pretty grand as well (2007's "If You Wouldn't Mind" leaps immediately to mind and stays there.) But he's always had an affinity for dub textures, as the "Sound System" moniker suggests. Catch him at rocksteady, long-runnning weekly Dub Mission, where he last played in 1999(!) for a good dose of the sublime.